Introducing Natasha Corrett

The champion of the alkaline lifestyle

Meet our new contributor and founder of Honestly Healthy, Natasha Corrett.Where does your interest in healthy eating come from?
When I was growing up my mother was very allergic to wheat and gluten so we never had bread and pasta in the house. We were generally a very healthy household because of it, but on the other hand my father has a French restaurant, so I’m a complete foodie at heart, so I wasn’t prepared to eat rice cakes for the rest of my life! I felt really good when I ate with my mum, whereas when I ate food I loved I felt sick after I ate it. It was a process of finding out what to eat to feel better afterwards.How do you balance your foodie nature with a healthy lifestyle?
That’s actually where the Honestly Healthy cookbook came from. I wanted to write recipes that were healthy alternatives to a brownie or a pizza, so I could enjoy both aspects. I was never really prepared for the answer to be “no, you can’t have the food you want!”And you’re self-taught?
Yes, I’ve worked very closely with my godmother Vicki Edgson, who is one of the top nutritionists in the country, so through being a part of her life I’ve learnt a lot. I’ve never had any formal training but I know a lot that I put into practice because it’s all based on my own struggle.How did Honestly Healthy come about?
It’s grown very organically – in all senses of the word! I was running yoga retreats and one day one of my chefs didn’t turn up, so I had to cook for everyone. I’m the kind of person who just gets stuck in and makes the best of it, and luckily, I had amazing feedback! Soon people were asking “how do I get this food back at home in London?” So I started making lunches in my tiny kitchen at home, driving around London to different offices delivering them. Then I started providing three days worth of food to my clients on a Monday, and the Fridge Fill service was born. It was that initial buzz of someone saying, “we love your food,” which gave me the confidence to carry on. How did you discover the alkaline lifestyle?
I injured my back doing yoga, and when I went to see an ayurvedic doctor, he told me I was very acidic and that I needed to go on a 21-day alkaline detox. I thought I was very healthy – I drank green juices – but I was too acidic. I had struggled with my weight fluctuating for years – it would go from a stone heavier to a stone lighter within six months – and no other diet had helped, so I was hesitant to try it, but it really worked. I didn’t lose weight immediately but I felt better, my hormones started to rebalance, I slept better, I had more energy and my skin improved. So I carried on and Honestly Healthy was born!What does the alkaline lifestyle entail?
The easiest way to explain it is that our blood is 7.35/7.45 on the pH scale, making it slightly alkaline. This means it makes sense for us to eat more alkaline foods to make us at our optimum health. The problem is that all the things we tend to gravitate towards in the Western world – meat, alcohol, sugar, processed foods – are very acid forming. So an alkaline lifestyle involves cutting these things out of your diet and eating copious amounts of vegetables, fruit, good grains and finding alternatives for the naughty things you want! When you’re in an acid state, you can’t break down the toxins, so the best way to do that is to do an alkaline cleanse.And what kind of results do you achieve?
I’ve had emails from a chronic insomniac who after a week was sleeping through the night; other people have lost 12 pounds in three weeks without even trying and not feeling hungry. People feel better and have more energy!
Watch this space for Natasha’s first blog.

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